Many companies employ contact centers to exchange information with customers, typically as part of their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs. Automated systems, such as interactive voice response (IVR) systems, are often used to provide customers with information in the form of recorded messages and to obtain information from customers using keypad or voice responses to recorded queries.
When a customer contacts a company, a classification system is often employed to classify spoken utterances or text received from the customer into one of several subject areas or classes. In the case of spoken utterances, the classification system will typically first convert the speech to text using a speech recognition engine. Once the communication is classified into a particular subject area, the communication can be routed to an appropriate call center agent or response team, as appropriate. For example, a telephone inquiry may be automatically routed to a given call center agent based on the expertise, skills or capabilities of the agent.
A company must employ a different classification system for each language supported by the contact center. The process of generating a unique classification system for each supported language is typically significant, especially where the number of potential questions and possible answers associated with each call is large. Thus, a need exists for improved techniques for generating a classification system in several desired languages. A further need exists for a method and apparatus for automatically translating a classification system in a first source language into one or more additional target languages.